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Post by LorrB on Oct 18, 2011 11:51:50 GMT 9.5
This ministration is the central purpose both for the existence of Freemasonry and for admission into its Lodges, with their highly symbolic appointments and power-generating ceremonial activities. The procedure within a Masonic temple are, I believe, charged with profound significance, and pregnant with spiritual and occult power and meaning, as many Co-Masons know by experience.
Unless this is so, does it not appear that the appointments, regalia, gestures and words are as so much childish play-acting, unworthy of adults? A further remarkable way in which Freemasonry can assist its initiates is less external and ceremonial and more interior and mystical.
This is in the attainment of conscious realization of union with God or the GAOTU and through Him with all that lives. This also would seem allegorically to be alluded to by the references to the initiate’s ascent of the ladder of Masonic progress, which I have already touched upon; for ascent into the canopy of heaven - at the summit of the ladder - symbolizes union with the Most High. This surely implies intellectual and spiritual realization that in his inmost nature, each human being is divine, and further, and most important, that the divine power and Presence in every man and woman is precisely and essentially the same. This is stated thus: “As He is the centre of His Universe, so is His reproduction of Himself the centre of ourselves, the Inner Ruler Immortal, and that our whole nature must be conformed to That whereby it lives.” At the Sign of the Square and Compasses, by Geoffrey Hodson
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Post by paul on Oct 18, 2011 12:06:20 GMT 9.5
I am not sure that ascending the ladder into the heavens constitutes the end of the process. Humans are only really happy when they are doing something productive.
Perhaps there is another temple to which the ladder leads.
If so, that suggests that there is work to be done in the temples. What might that be?
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Post by LorrB on Oct 18, 2011 12:39:50 GMT 9.5
Maybe we will have reached a stage beyond what is considered Hu-man once we reach a certain point.. Once a mineral, plant, animal, human, .... ?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2011 16:53:50 GMT 9.5
I am not sure that ascending the ladder into the heavens constitutes the end of the process. Humans are only really happy when they are doing something productive. Perhaps there is another temple to which the ladder leads. If so, that suggests that there is work to be done in the temples. What might that be? Tell us what YOU have in mind and we will take it from there.
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Post by LorrB on Oct 19, 2011 7:53:00 GMT 9.5
Smithee, are you familiar with Geoffrey Hodson? He was a member of The Theosophical Society here in Adelaide for a while. Wonderful person by all accounts and I have listened to quite a few of his lectures, which were taped. His books are worth reading. He possessed extra-ordinary vision and discribes what he sees. He was also a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodson
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Post by paul on Oct 19, 2011 8:01:26 GMT 9.5
.... we will take it from there. Smithee, Much of Hodson's material can be found on line here www.austheos.org.au/clibrary/bindex-h.html Perhaps you would like to look at one of them and give the forum your assessment.
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Post by tamrin on Oct 19, 2011 12:10:20 GMT 9.5
From my reading, Alan was asking what Paul had in mind.
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Post by paul on Oct 19, 2011 12:20:32 GMT 9.5
Given his interest in this area I am sure Smithee is quite capable of making his own thoughtful contributions.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2011 16:47:22 GMT 9.5
I am also capable of objecting on my own behalf if offended, which I am not. Thank you Phillip for your timely clarification.
What did Paul have in mind?
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Post by paul on Oct 19, 2011 17:41:58 GMT 9.5
I suggest that the ladder in the EA TB leads to a temple in the heavens in which a genuine MM may do work.
That work may be the second purpose for which Freemasonry exists.
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Post by tamrin on Oct 20, 2011 5:47:39 GMT 9.5
I suggest that the ladder in the EA TB leads to a temple in the heavens in which a genuine MM may do work. Are you referring to the Bailey inspired notion of a physical "temple in the heavens" incorporating seven solar systems, including our own, orbiting Alcyone in the Pleiades, about which you have spoken before?
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Post by paul on Oct 20, 2011 5:52:32 GMT 9.5
It is just a simple interpretation of the EA TB
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Post by Henka on Oct 20, 2011 7:03:53 GMT 9.5
I suggest that the ladder in the EA TB leads to a temple in the heavens in which a genuine MM may do work. Are you referring to the Bailey inspired notion of a physical "temple in the heavens" incorporating seven solar systems, including our own, orbiting Alcyone in the Pleiades, about which you have spoken before? As an aside, the Pleiades is a younger system even than ours.
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Post by paul on Oct 20, 2011 7:23:09 GMT 9.5
Younger brothers can be a real pain!
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Post by LorrB on Oct 20, 2011 11:56:53 GMT 9.5
From The Secret Doctine, H P Blavatsky writes.. In his Maconnerie Occulte, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, rightly or wrongly reproaches the English Masons with having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the Craft, the name of ‘Free Masonry’ and ‘Free Masons.’ The mistake is due, he says to those who connect Masonry with the building of Solomon’s Temple. He derides the idea, and says: “The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of Freemason, that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that, initiated into the Mysteries veiled under the name of Freemasonry, which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient Mysteries, he was to become a “Mason” after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do we not know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the foundation of a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, God of reasoning, and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam’s father, to help him to build the city of Troy – that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.”
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Post by LorrB on Oct 20, 2011 11:59:19 GMT 9.5
Further.... “Moses, an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious mysteries of the new nation which he created upon the same abstract formulae derived from this Sidereal Cycle, symbolized by the form and measurements of the Tabernacle, which he is supposed to have constructed in the Wilderness. On these data, the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon’s Temple – a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical Temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses.”
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Post by paul on Oct 21, 2011 8:49:11 GMT 9.5
So what is the relevance of the Sidereal Cycle to the purposes of Freemasonry?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2011 10:06:33 GMT 9.5
Are you referring to the Bailey inspired notion of a physical "temple in the heavens" incorporating seven solar systems, including our own, orbiting Alcyone in the Pleiades, about which you have spoken before? Paul, pray tell us more.
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Post by paul on Oct 22, 2011 10:18:49 GMT 9.5
Smithee
You are quoting from Tamrin. Perhaps he will respond.
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Post by tamrin on Oct 23, 2011 18:44:52 GMT 9.5
Smithee
You are quoting from Tamrin. Perhaps he will respond. Paul I was asking you. Perhaps you will respond.
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